I Will - Will You?
by Ajerzaaddict
Summary: Is Jellal too naive to believe that the woman whom he hurt deeply in the past will be willing to become his wife?


Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail, Hiro Mashima does.

* * *

It is well known that whenever Fairy Tail's members present, the place will be in an uproar, with people talking, laughing, quarrelling, fighting and scolding. But now, in the Kardia Cathedral which is filled with all Fairy Tail members, not one member is daring to make a sound. They have been seriously warned for several times before that if they interrupt the ceremony which is undergoing right now, they may have to take sick leave for several months afterwards due to the punishment received from a certain redhead.

The only sound that can be heard in the Cathedral now is the voice of the priest.

"-, will you have this woman to be your wedded wife, to love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, and forsaking all others, keep you only unto her, for so long as you both shall live?" The priest asks the groom after giving a speech on the meaning of marriage.

"I will." A baritone voice answers with firmness.

"Erza Scarlet, will you have this man to be your wedded husband, to love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, and forsaking all others, keep you only unto him, so long as you both shall live?"

One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.

"Miss Scarlet?"

"I – I…"

The groom casts a sidelong glance at his bride. She's looking at the ground and her body is shaking slightly. A shade of worry creeps across his face. Everyone else is holding their breath, waiting anxiously for the bride to give her answer.

"I…I'm sorry!" The "answer", which is totally unexpected by everyone, escapes Erza's mouth and startles all in the Cathedral like an explosion of a hidden bomb. "Requip!"

Erza swiftly turns and runs to the exits of the Cathedral with her Flight Armor on. No one tries to grab her, not even the groom. People are either too shocked by the unexpected turn of the event to react or still haven't figured out what has just happened. She then disappears from everyone's sights in mere seconds.

"Erza!"

The groom, being the first one to wake up from the trance-like state, calls out in panic while activating his own magic in hope of catching up with his runaway bride.

"Meteor!"

A beam of golden light flashes by, and he is no longer present in front of the altar as well.

"So…is the ceremony called off now?" The priest asks, slowly turning his gaze from the empty space where the wedding couple was standing in less than fifteen seconds ago to the short old man who is sitting at the left side of the altar.

"…" A sweat drops from Makarov's forehead. "M-maybe they will come back soon? How about we give them a chance and wait for another half hour before deciding?"

After a moment of thinking, the priest lets out a sigh before nodding his agreement.

* * *

Outside the Cathedral, the blue-haired gloom is chasing the red-haired bride on the road leading to Fairy Tail's building.

"Erza, wait!"

"No!"

"Ah!" "Bang!" "Oh!" "Crack!" "Ow!"

People or things that are blocking the way of the two of the most powerful mages of Fairy Tail are all being forcefully pushed away, that people's cries and things' breaking sound can be heard from everywhere the mages have passed by.

When Erza reaches the guild's building, she finds that it's closed. Of course, all Fairy Tail's members have gone to attend her wedding! Where can she go now? Right! Fairy Hills! But before she can run to the direction of the dormitory, she is being pulled back. Her chaser has taken the advantage of the moment when she stops to consider her next destination to catch her by grabbing at her wrist.

Erza swings her arm violently, trying to shake her groom off, but his free arm comes up from behind to wrap around her waist, holding her tight against his chest.

"Erza, please, we need to talk." The man pleads.

She doesn't answer him but twists, still trying to free herself from being confined by his strong arm. After a moment of struggle, she realizes that his grip on her only becomes even tighter than before. She finally gives up her resistance.

"I'm sorry." Erza repeats her apology with a defeated tone.

The man sighs, releases Erza from his grip and places his hands on her shoulders instead to turn her around to face him. But she keeps her head low and covers her eyes with bangs, refuses to look at him. He gently lifts up her chin with his thumb and index finger, and is greeted by a pair of teary brown eyes. He somehow doesn't feel surprised to see her being on the verge of breaking down in tears under the current circumstances, yet it still breaks his heart to see her looking that sad. The loads of questions that are hanging in his mind which he wants her to answer subside and all he can think of now is how naive he is to believe that the woman whom he hurt deeply in the past will be willing to become his wife. She must have realized at some point after accepting his proposal that she doesn't love him as much as she think and to the extent of being able to spend the rest of her life with him. He can't bring himself to blame her for only revealing the cruel truth to him in the last minute though. He loves her very much. It's simply that a sinner like him doesn't deserve her love.

"You don't need to feel sorry; you did nothing wrong. I understand." He tries to sound calm but he can hear that his voice is trembling. "It's totally fine to reject me if marrying me is not what you want."

His words are meant to comfort Erza, but they seem to upset her even more instead. He watches a drop of tear falls from her left eye, then another one from her right eye, and soon two streams of clear water run down on both sides of her cheeks.

"B-but…I…" She sobs out her words; her hands come up to clutch tightly at the lapels on his tuxedo with a sense of desperation. "I do want to marry you, Jellal!"

The said man is absolutely perplexed by the confession of his runaway bride.

"You want to…. marry me?" Jellal asks Erza with uncertainty. "Then…why did you run away?"

Erza averts her gaze from Jellal; her face blushes lightly.

"I – I…...I don't think I can be the good wife of yours." She mutters with an almost inaudible voice. "I don't want you to feel regret to have me as your wife after marrying me."

Jellal's eyes widen; he then smiles bitterly and slightly shakes his head. He can't believe that _that _is the reason why he was dumped by Erza in front of the altar. It actually sounds ridiculous to him for her to think that he will regret marrying her. Doesn't she know he's dying to be with her? And shouldn't he be the one to fear that _she_ will regret after marrying him considering his dark history? Yet, a small part of him also feels guilty for not noticing her worry earlier. On the good side, at least she does want to marry him, which gives him some reliefs. He takes a deep breath as hope rises in his heart again. The current situation is not irreversible; he only needs to clear her doubts.

"Although there are lots of things I regret doing in my life, I'm certain that asking you to be my wife is and will never be one of them." Jellal tells Erza softly, sparing one hand to wipe away her falling tears. "Why do you think that you can't be a good wife? You don't even get married yet, and you give up before trying? It doesn't sound like something Titania will do."

"I don't need to get married to find out. I just know…" Erza trails off, trying to avoid giving further details to Jellal. It depresses her to recall her failures.

"Erza…..." The way Jellal calls her with his deep and sexy voice is so full of affection and tenderness, which causes Erza's heart to flutter. Both know when he does _this_, she is usually unable to decline the request he is going to make. "There have to be _someone_ or _something_ to cause you to lose the confidence in yourself. Please, tell me the truth."

Silence falls between them briefly before Erza turns to face Jellal again and speaks up.

"I-I did tests." She stutters as the color on her cheeks evolves from pink into red.

"What tests?" Jellal asks with a puzzled look on his face.

So Erza starts explaining.

When she finishes, Jellal has lost count of the number of time he cursed whoever designed those tests of "Will you be a good wife?", "Your potential to be the men's perfect wife", "Dose the role of housewife suits you?", "Find out if you are ready to face the challenges in your new role as a wife." …and anything similar.

Yet, Jellal has to admit if he is to be honest, that putting all the blame on the tests for brainwashing Erza into believing that she can't be a "good" wife can't totally exempt Erza's responsibility from leading to the predicament they are in now. It's really out of his comprehension why the usually smart, rational and self-confident Erza would think that she could find out whether she would be a "good" wife by challenging a dozen of those trivial tests in some random women's magazines, and lost herself after scoring low marks in most of the tests and as a result decided to abandon him just before saying her wedding vow. He can just guess that she may be too nervous to take up her new role as a wife that her normal self has been temporary out of function. He has to redirect her back to the right track.

"Listen to me, Erza. I don't care about how people outside define the meaning of a 'good' wife."

Jellal says with a serious face. The woman whom he falls in love with is _the Titania_, a mage, a Queen, a leader and a fighter who out-competes many others, both women and men, in the country in terms of magic power, fighting skills, courage and willpower. He never expects her to fit in the traditional role of a wife defined by the general public, that is, someone who stays at home to do all the household works, is skillful at cooking, enjoys sewing and knitting during her leisure time while waiting for her husband to come back home after work and etc. It is the unique kindness and generosity reside in her heart which make him believe without doubt that she's the prefect one to be his wife.

"To me, a 'good' wife will be someone who can brighten the dark side of my world with her love, give me hopes to move on when I feel lost, support me when I'm not strong enough to overcome difficulties, and…who will not hesitate to slap me in the face when I do stupid things in order to knock some senses in my head."

Erza can't suppress a light chuckle from escaping her lips when hearing Jella's last sentence, which in turn brings a small smile on Jellal's lips. Jellal pulls Erza into his chest, embracing her with his arms wrapped around her waist. His head leans down to the side of her right cheek; his hot breath tickles the shell of her ear.

"I think you are the only woman who can be my 'good' wife. Don't you think so, Erza?"

Low, soft, but a bit hoarse, and plated with a little hint of desire. Jellal's voice sounds so seductive to Erza that it actually makes her shivers.

"I-I don't know." She stutters, again. "A-are you sure what you said is good enough? Even I…"

"I take you as my wife not because I want you to do housekeeping for me or to take care of my daily life. Of course, I'm not going to lie about it, that _if_ you feel like to, it's also very welcomed." Jellal speaks up to stop Erza from counting her "incapability" as a "good" wife. He can't help but sighs internally at the same time. Ultear and Meredy call him stubborn; they should try to deal with Erza to find out the true meaning of stubbornness. "I marry you because I want to love you, protect you and bring happiness to you in the rest of your life as your husband."

Erza feels her face burning like fire and her heart thumping like thunder as she takes in Jellal's sweet words. All of a sudden, she realizes how stupid she is to think that _her_ Jellal would give up on her just because she fails to meet the standard of a "good" wife in others' eyes. It is as if his declaration of love have broken an unknown spell casted on her through those tests which clouds her mind and makes her doubt that he will ever want an unfeminine knight like her to be his wife. The uneasiness accumulated in Erza's chest in the past month due to her inglorious failures in a numerous of tests on her suitability as a wife has finally vanished. What's left in her heart now, is a mixture of feelings of relief, happy, guilt and embarrassment.

"Erza…?" As seconds pass, the unresponsive redhead starts to worry Jellal. What if she still insists that she doesn't suit to be his wife?

While Jellal is considering what steps he can take next if Erza keeps her stance, Erza raises her head and looks at Jellal with determination in her eyes.

"I'm terribly sorry for running away from you in our wedding, Jellal. You can punish me for my stupidity by hitting me if you want to. But, please forgive me and give me another chance."

Jellal sighs with relief, and shakes his head with a light chuckle at Erza's suggestion on punishment.

"No, I have sworn that I'll never hit you…again." Jellal hesitantly says the last word as it painfully reminds him how he had beaten Erza up twice in the past. "But I need you to answer my following question truthfully so that I may give you another chance."

Jellal releases Erza from his embrace but holds her hands between his palms, getting down on one knee in front of her.

"Erza Scarlet, will you marry me?"

Erza's eyes widen in surprise as Jellal proposes to her for the second time; she then nods her head frantically.

"Yes!"

Standing up, Jellal gives Erza a heartfelt smile.

"So, shall we return to the Cathedral immediately now to resume the interrupted ceremony so as to make it official, Erza?"

"S-sure!" Erza stutters once again as Jellal uses his trick to speak her name in that special way one more time.

* * *

Using their magic, Erza and Jellal rushes back to the Cathedral with intertwined hands. Another round of cries and breaking sounds can be heard on the street connecting the guild's building and the Cathedral.

It's just in time for them to bump into the priest who is going to leave when they arrive at the doorstep of the Cathedral.

"So, you two have solved your little problem?" The priest asks with an understanding smile on his face.

"Yes, we did." Erza answers timidly, flushing, as she's the one who has caused all the troubles.

"And we are terribly sorry for the inconvenience we have caused you." Jellal follows to apologize to the priest. "But we would be truly grateful if you could hold the unfinished ceremony for us now."

Jellal feels truly nervous inside about how the priest will respond to his plead, fearing that if he can't marry Erza today, she may change her mind again.

"No problem. Let us continue what we were doing half hour ago."

Both Erza and Jellal sigh in relief, which is followed by loud cheering, whistling and laughing from the Fairy Tail's members in the Cathedral.

Requipping back into her wedding dress, Erza stands beside Jellal in front of the altar once again.

"Erza Scarlet, will you have this man to be your wedded husband, to love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, and forsaking all others, keep you only unto him, so long as you both shall live?"

"I will."

To Jellal, Erza's voice saying these two simple but scared words is the most beautiful and touching sound he has ever heard in his life.


End file.
